Puddle of Ink

Saturday night, I broke my own “no partying on Saturdays when you work on Sunday” rule and after working a thirteen hour shift at the clinic, donned “whore boots” and a mini skirt and hit up the Earl in East Atlanta to see one of the local funk and soul bands. I met up with my former coworkers-turned-friends, plus the guy from Athens (unexpectedly), and had truly the best time out I have had in a while. We got there at 7:30 and finally left around 1am, slightly inebriated and utterly danced out, and it was so completely worth the pain of getting up at 5am the next morning for another 13 hour shift. And dude! I was introduced, completely out of the blue, to a local photographer whose work I’ve been following for a while now. Night? Made. In a thousand different ways, made.

But now, it’s raining and the view out the window about matches the tone of the last few days. Everything is muted, but I can’t say that I don’t like it. The quiet is nice, if a little gloomy.

In other news, he proved me right. He didn’t succeed, but he tried and he forced his hand. I had figured as much. She texted me last week and said she didn’t want to talk about it. She did anyway, legs swinging over the arm of the chair and laughing it off, as if by smiling she could prove it didn’t hurt. And all I could see was me, swallowing the hurt and trying to laugh off the details of my own sordid misery to the PS, just in case she didn’t take it seriously. Because if I didn’t, then it wouldn’t hurt if she didn’t either, right? So it was that with The-Hobbit-turned-Cinderella, I took it seriously even when she couldn’t quite bring herself to. And it sucks swallowing the big-sister reaction and taking on instead that of the parent, the confidante, the … therapist? Fuck if I know. Too many hats to keep them all straight.

And completely unrelated, I realized the other day that it’s been a year since Des died. It snowed the same day, too. You’d think I’d forget … as if the failed five would let me. The dynamic here just isn’t the same, and I think I just miss how it was when it was only the Brindle Brothers, Desmond, and me. We had the apartment then, not the flooding dungeon of horrors as we do now; we had the Other Half; we had our sense of independence. Now? I don’t know what we have. Except a big, fucking hole.  Which is neither here nor there. But hey, it’s midnight and I always spew without censorship after midnight (just ask the PS … God knows she’s gotten enough early morning emails from me to know).

So yeah. It’s all greyed out, not even black and white but just greyed and blurred and slightly out of focus. And it feels about like this, which I couldn’t explain if I tried. It just … does.

I woke up this morning to a Google Reader overwhelmed by a single message: Love Harder.

And while a smile here and a hug there, or letting someone ahead of me in traffic and helping someone’s grandmother at the grocery store all have absolutely nothing to do with cancer, “love harder” was still a fitting message to rise to this morning, as I’ve made a quiet point of integrating the attitude into my daily life lately. Apparently, when I’m barely working and not eyeballs deep in schoolwork, I like to get back to basics and concentrate on radiating love (it would be cheesy if it weren’t Belle Renee’s blog post—so click the blasted link already). Who knew?

Anywho. Most of the blogosphere knows who Brandy is. Personally, I read a hell of a lot more than I ever comment over there, and honestly, I don’t know her, aside from the parts of herself that she shares with us via her blog. She’s not on my Gchat list, nor is her email address saved to my contacts list. I don’t even think I have her on my blogroll (which is a total problem, if that’s the case … I should go check on that, actually). So I feel more like I’m jumping on a bandwagon than showing any sort of support for someone I care about; I never even posted her original plea because it seemed like it just wasn’t my place, as a relative stranger. But regardless, the bottom line is that I hold a lot of admiration and respect for the woman, and if this is all I can do, then, dammit, I’m doing it.

Besides, I think everyone—wherever they are, whatever they’re wrestling with in their personal lives—can afford to love harder. So read it, do what you can to make a difference, and take the message home with you tonight.

Love harder. Life’s too short not to.

—

Our Plea

Our friend Brandy is a brilliant writer, a wonderful teacher, and a generous friend.  And she is in love with a man who has just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

We are raising money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Fund in his name.  For the price of a cinnamon dolce latte, half-caf, hold the whip, you can be part of an effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide.

http://www.loveharder.org

Every dollar brings us a dollar closer to a cure.  And every donation brings a sliver of hope to a girl who needs all the hope she can get.

What You Can Do

• Give. Be part of a worldwide effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide.  Every dollar helps.
• Pass it on. Forward this story to five people.  Share this blog post.  Become our fan on Facebook.
• Love harder. Life is short, love is unbending, and no one knows what could happen next. Tell someone you love them today.

Where Your Money Goes

• The American Institute of Philanthropy recently named The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation one of the best organizations to give to in terms of their accountability and use of resources.
• By working closely with researchers, clinicians and partners in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, the MMRF has helped bring multiple myeloma patients four new treatments that are extending lives around the globe.
• The MMRF has advanced twenty Phase I and Phase II clinical trials. They need your support to advance these clinical research programs and accelerate the development of better, more effective treatments.
• The MMRF’s Multiple Myeloma Genomics Initiative recently became the first to sequence the multiple myeloma whole genome in its entirety.
• A whopping 98% of your donation to the MMRF will be used immediately to support high-priority multiple myeloma research.
• With diminishing funding for early stage drug development and the next myeloma treatments not expected to be approved until 2011, the MMRF desperately needs your help.

Brandy’s Story can be found here

DONATE: http://www.loveharder.org
CONTACT: theloveharderfund@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: http://facebook.loveharder.org
MORE INFO: http://www.themmrf.org

She’d been silent, he’d been angry. It was the day before semester would begin, and I knew the question was going to come up sooner or later. I had hoped it would be today, when I had more than just three hours of sleep preceding a thirteen-hour shift and six hours of driving on icy roads under my belt. But they’ve never been much for timing, so last night it was.

“What all did you sign up for this semester?”

It was a loaded question; she’d never given a damn before and she damn well knew the answer without needing to ask me. She had me cornered at my computer again, per her usual tactic, and the exaggerated innocence of her inquiry told me from the get-go that this couldn’t possibly end well. The conversation went as predictably wrong as could be imagined, and my fingers arced into claws of frustration over my computer keyboard as I measured my words, my tone, my pace. I told her the truth, which was “nothing.” I also told her why, but she was too busy berating me for laziness and apathy and reminding me of “the whole reason you moved home” to hear it.

I could see the gears grinding in her head as she contemplated the “consequences and ramifications” to be imposed due to my “misbehavior.”  Because in her mind, I’m still twelve years old and subject to simple disciplinary measures that will change my mind about “acting out.” She still believes that taking away my radio or locking me out of my email account will bend me into submission of her current idea of what’s right and necessary.

She chose not to probe for the details surrounding my decision—as I’m sure she damn well knew the answers to that one, too—and ignored my responses entirely, preferring to talk in meaningless circles rather than to allow words to accomplish something that is not, for once, destructive. She walked away a few minutes later in irritation, midway through my response to one of her questions. I figured that the conversation would continue in the morning, but I didn’t expect her to instead hand off will-wrestling duties to my father five minutes later.

He walked into the room with an ominous casualness and said simply that if there were late fees for registration, he needed me to register before midnight tonight … “On your mark, get set, go!” for College Conversations Gone Wrong, Take Two. I looked at my keyboard and told him, just as I had told my mother, that I’m not in a space to handle the pressure and deadlines, that I need to back off for a moment and deal with the more pressing parts of life right now. He went rigid at my perceived resistance, demanded reasons, and I opted for the plain, simple truth.

“Because I’ve tried for a year, and it’s damn near killed me. I can’t do it here and I’m afraid of what will happen if I put that kind of pressure on myself right now.”

His voice rose alongside his anger. “Well, I don’t know what it’s going to take, but I suggest you look closer to home before trying to project any problems on this household.” … Try the mirror, I finished dutifully in my head, knowing the rest of the sentence all too well, and I lowered my tone, my intensity, and my gaze to compensate for the heightened state of his.

Too tired to defend myself with any amount of anger, too disappointed in myself to even try to pretend to be okay, I rattled off every reason that I don’t belong in this house or in a classroom, all at his incessant prodding. He continued taking jabs, pushing the issue, and I finally gave up the last explanation I had.

“Because I have relapsed on every, single self-abusive tendency I could ever come up with, and created some new ones along the way. I wasn’t being dramatic when I said it’s damn near killed me, Dad. I … can’t … handle it right now. I just … can’t. I’m sorry.”

The “sorry” was less a weakened apology than it was simply a tear-stained regret, but I knew he wasn’t really listening, anyway. Sure enough, livid once again, he walked away before I’d finished speaking, and moments later, his bedroom door slammed overhead.

And the failure remains, as always, with me. If not here and at the cost of family image and expectation, it would have been in the classroom and at the cost of a semester’s tuition. Either way, they still – still - only see the failure. Dammit.

Christmas and I didn’t have much to say to one another this year, which seems to have been true for most of my friends’ Christmases as well. The holidays just weren’t convincing enough cause for celebration, it seems.

The eve of Christmas Eve was spent putting the cats to sleep, after spending all day curled up in bed with them and alternating between denial and tears. And when the time came, it was worse than I’d braced for. It couldn’t have been helped, but still … nothing like assembly-line euthanasia to get you in the holiday spirit.

Christmas Eve itself involved signing papers at the crematory and then heading for the weekly hour with the Psych Spectacular, which was probably exactly where I needed to be right then, anyway. The session revolved more around animal rescue experiences than it did anything else—but really, it was probably better therapy for that moment than anything else could have been.

But night fell, reality returned, and I tuned out the Muppet Christmas Carol playing on the television with the buffer of drink, until I could crawl into bed without noticing the striking lack of kitties there. Coping skills fail, no doubt.

Christmas morning, I woke up to a hangover, a half-empty bed, and to a room that had once again flooded from the night’s rain. There was nothing to do but blink, sigh, and splash upstairs for the usual gift-opening tradition. I coasted through the ceremonies on autopilot, and the rest of the day was equally forced. I have never in my life hated Christmas as much as I did this year. It was awkward. It was a hassle. It was fake.

For lunch at my grandparents’ house, the Hobbit tied her hair in a pink ribbon and donned pearls. I, realizing I had nothing presentable left after all of the flooding, donned slob wear and a thin smile instead. I showed up and could barely look anyone in the eye. I felt like a fraud. I snorted audibly at my sister’s eager suck-uppitude, and when my grandmother asked when my next semester started, I answered frankly, “I have no idea.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes when my other sister jumped in to save face, with the date and course load she had selected. It just didn’t matter to me.

I went out to visit with Elsie afterward, for lack of anything better to do. It was freezing and there was nothing outside with which to distract myself, but it was better than being confined in the house with forced small talk and polite conversation.

An hour later, my grandfather poured me a cup of coffee and told me he’d like to know more about my job and my future plans. So I joined him in the sunroom where we talked about the field of veterinary medicine and he offered to introduce me to the higher-ups at the vet school if I thought I might pursue the field as a career.

“Just try to hang in there,” he said after a minute, staring uncomfortably at the gift bags on the table before us. Struggling with an upbringing that mandated stoicism, and a granddaughter in pain, it was his way of saying he knew something was more than a little wrong. Livid with my mother for having shared so much of my stress and emotional distance when she herself couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge it to my face, I couldn’t stand to have my holiday indifference heaped onto anyone else. I left at 4, flipping peace signs to the sun when it graced the road with its presence and hoping to God that its rising the next morning might bring something better than this.

And surprisingly, it did, which I’ll get to later. But in the meantime, the predictable source of smiles from the day.

Being cute.

Puppy pounce!

Waiting for a stick.

Catching the stick.

OMG, STICK!!!!

And back to being cute.

So that was Christmas. Emphasis on the was, thank God.